In various retail commercial and industrial environments, the use of optical indicia, such as bar code symbols, has become the norm for identifying products and inventory. Typically, each item is marked with optical indicia associated with a description of the item and other attributes (for example, price) that are stored in a database of a host device or network system. Optical readers are used to read the optical indicia and provide that reading as input information to host devices. In some cases, the data is provided to the host devices via base units, which communicate with the optical reader. Examples of host devices include a computer (fixed or portable), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a portable data terminal (PDT), a point of sale (POS) terminal, a point of transaction (POT) terminal, a transaction terminal, cash register, or similar device. Checkout stations in retail environments use stationary presentation-type optical readers, (e.g., flat bed scanners, omni-directional bar code readers) mobile hand held optical readers hardwired to a base unit, mobile wireless hand held optical readers that communicate wirelessly with a linked base unit, or some combination of the above to read optical indicia such as bar code symbols, or bar codes. In some retail environments, the base unit then communicates this information to the cash register. Alternatively, the hand held optical reader can be connected directly to the cash register.
One delay in passing a customer through the transaction in the retail environment is identifying the customer to the cashier or POT terminal. One related art approach used for linking a retail checkout network to a customer is to scan (e.g., using an optical or magnetic reader) an identification card issued to the customer by the retail establishment. Generally, the identification card includes a bar code or magnetic data identifying the customer located on the back of the identification card. Alternatively, the customer can be identified to the retail checkout network by inputting the customer's phone number or other identifying criteria. However, such identification takes time and delays the processing of the customer at the transaction terminal by requiring additional actions of the cashier and/or the customer.